The Amish Bride

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “You’re not old,” I said, even though I knew she was.

  “I started this business hoping I could help out Luke and Millie. Maybe earn enough money to pay them wages…” Her eyes drifted toward the back door as if she were mentally headed to the bakery. She shook her head quickly and met my gaze again. “At least your drumming up business in town has helped. That’s kept us in the black, barely.”

  That was the best news I’d heard in weeks.

  “You have a letter,” she said, looking back down at the books. “I put it on your dresser.”

  I hurried down the hall, hoping it would be from Ezra. It wasn’t. It was from Freddy Bayer. My whole body grew cold as I sank down onto the bed. If there had been a woodstove in the house that was lit, I would have burned it without reading it, I was sure. But there wasn’t, so I opened the envelope.

  Dear Ella,

  First, I want you to know how proud I am of you. Your mother speaks so highly of you, as does Zed. We all hoped you would return to Lancaster County, but the fact you stayed in Indiana and chose to go to baking school shows your strength and determination. You’ve had a good example of this in your mother, plus she has raised you right, I know. For that I am very grateful.

  Second, I was disappointed not to be able to meet you, as you probably know. But I don’t blame you for not wanting to see me. I was horrible to your mother, you, and Zed. I deeply regret what I did. Please forgive me, in time, if you can.

  I am an alcoholic and have been in recovery for the last three years. One of the things I’ve been learning is to express my feelings. As a young man, I too was deeply betrayed by my father, but I was taught to ignore my pain and carry on. Instead I ended up committing the same sins he did. My prayer for you and Zed is that you will be able to express your pain and eventually heal. My hope is that the destructive cycle in our family will end.

  When I joined the Mennonite church with your mother, I thought I knew what it meant to be a Christian—but I didn’t. While in recovery, I’ve learned what it means to follow Jesus, to try to trust Him one day at a time. That’s all I can do.

  So I trust Him with you.

  Love,

  Dad

  I crumpled the letter in my hand and curled onto the bed. The thickening in the back of my throat surprised me. I wasn’t just angry—I was also really, really sad. The tears flowed like a flash flood. I pulled my knees to my chest and tightened my fist around the letter. My stoic mother had never told me emotions were bad, but she’d never encouraged them, either. Sobs shook me. I hadn’t cried in years, and never like this.

  A knock came on my door, followed by Rosalee’s tentative voice. “Ella, are you all right?”

  “Ya,” I answered, trying hard to keep my voice even.

  She hesitated and then said, this time a little louder, “Come get me if you need me.”

  “Danke,” I answered. “I will.”

  I stayed that way until the room began to darken and then smoothed the letter out as best I could and read it again. No longer sad, I stopped on the words “our family.” And then again on “Dad.” How dare he think he could weasel his way back in and then refer to himself in such a familiar way? Mom and Zed were obviously gullible enough to buy into his scheme, but I could see how he was trying to manipulate me, saying Mom was proud of me. Not even mentioning his cancer. Writing about what he’d learned in recovery. He was trying to get me to go home without begging me to. It was probably some kind of reverse psychology. He hoped to have my forgiveness to make himself feel better.

  I took a deep breath, relieved to feel only the old familiar anger. It felt so much better than the pain.

  I waited until Rosalee was in bed, and then I tiptoed into the living room, taking a match from the mantle and lighting the letter and envelope on fire. I held it until the heat of the flames licked at my fingers before dropping it to the floor of the fireplace and watched it turn from paper to fire and finally to ashes.

  I was in a funk all the next day as I waited on the customers at the front counter of Plain Treats. After we all ate leftover stew from the night before for our noon meal, Luke asked if I could help him load hay into the hayloft. Most of the hay was rolled into huge rounds and left in the fields, but he had a portion put in seventy-pound bales that were kept in the barn. As we walked, he asked me what was bothering me.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Ya, as a matter-of-fact it is.”

  I bit my lower lip and shook my head. “It’s nothing.” I wasn’t about to set myself up for any more advice from him.

  We worked in silence, him running up and down between the loft and the wagon, while I made sure the conveyor belt stayed in position. Once all the bales were in the loft, Luke said he would stack them later after he did the milking back home. His daed and Tom had gone into town.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

  I waved and headed toward the house, but then I turned and watched him walking toward the pasture. He’d been a good friend to me in his quiet way. I knew he had problems of his own, but his faith seemed to keep him in balance. I had never seen him in a dither or disrespectful with anyone.

  As it turned out, I didn’t see him the next day. It was the first time since I’d been at Rosalee’s that he hadn’t been at the Home Place for at least an hour or two.

  “I told him to take the day off,” Rosalee said. “He needs a break from us, don’t you think?”

  I nodded, but I knew she meant from me. She and Luke got along fabulously.

  On the way to class that afternoon, Penny prattled away about the lemon-cherry pudding cake she had made the night before. I half listened and half thought about Freddy Bayer. Then my mind fell to Ezra. I hadn’t had a letter from him, not even a paragraph, in several weeks.

  A wave of relief washed over me as we arrived in South Bend. Cake making would take my mind off everything else. I knew it was prideful to think, but the truth was I was acing l’art du gateau. It was the last class before our final next week, and there was nothing Pierre could say to me that could make me think otherwise. He hardly ever had a negative comment to make concerning my work, except that it was too elaborate.

  My cakes were delicious and moist. My fondant rolled out as if I’d been doing it my entire life. My frostings were tasty and manageable. Lesson after lesson, I led the class. Everything was going well except for my marzipan birds. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get them to look like Sarah’s drawings. But that was a minor failure in the overall scope of the class. I’d redeemed myself. Even Pierre was impressed.

  Our final was to bake and decorate a cake that was due the next week. I came up with a three-tiered white chocolate raspberry wedding cake topped with fondant. My plan was to use Rosalee’s berries for the filling and then decorate the whole thing with marzipan birds inspired from Sarah’s book, but simpler. I finally decided that the key was inspiration, not replication. I wanted to capture the essence of her art, not recreate it. All of the work had to be done at the school because I had no way of transporting a cake. Penny was making her cake at the school too, and Pierre said we could work Friday afternoon, late into the evening if we needed to.

  Toward the end of class on Thursday, Pierre called me into his office. My heart raced, sure he’d turned back into the dictator he’d been and was going to come up with some reason to humiliate me—except he usually did that in front of all the others.

  “Mademoiselle Ella,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk. “You have come so far, oui?”

  I stayed silent.

  “I have a proposition for you,” he said. “If—and it is a big if—you can pull off this cake, and if it turns out the way you have described it to be, drawn it to be…Anyway, I would like…” He blinked rapidly. “Let me start over.”

  He took a deep breath. “I’m thinking about expanding.”

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “I would like to add a wedding cake line. That has been missing from my bake
ry. Americans love their wedding cakes, and once a bride buys a cake she will come back for everything—bread, pastries, birthday cakes for the kids. Then wedding cakes for her daughters. See what I mean?”

  I nodded. I understood customer loyalty. Especially when it came to a good experience on a woman’s wedding day.

  “So, I am thinking, if you are successful with your cake, I would like to hire you to work for me.”

  My hand went to my chest. “Me?”

  “Oui,” he said. “I know it is a surprise.”

  “But I was your worst student—”

  “Yes, was,” he said. “Although you will do better if you still believe that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You did not take me seriously, did you? All that ribbing?”

  “Actually, I did.”

  He smiled sarcastically. “I only treated you that way because I knew you were gifted.”

  “I beg your pardon?” He’d made my life miserable for almost three months. And for what?

  “It is just my way,” he declared. “So will you consider working for me?”

  “Why would I want to?”

  He sat up straight. “Because I am the best around, and you will have the chance to keep learning—but you will be paid to do it. I do not have the patience for cakes anymore—but you? You enjoy it.”

  “When do you need to know?”

  He chuckled. “When I offer the position to you, depending on how your final goes.”

  My face grew warm. He’d already said that.

  I thought about Pierre’s possible offer as Penny drove home. There was no way I could work for Pierre. On the other hand, I’d be crazy not to.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Pierre’s offer was tempting, but I longed to be with Ezra. The next morning, I tried to call Mom’s cell from the phone in Plain Treats, but she didn’t answer so I called Zed.

  “Ella!” He sounded so happy to hear from me.

  “Is Mom around?”

  “No. She’s out on a call. You know how it goes.” He sounded so grown up. “Want me to give her a message?”

  “I want to talk with her about coming home.”

  “Well, yeah. About that. You’re probably going to have to stay at Mammi’s.”

  “Stay at Mammi’s? I don’t mean just for a visit. I’m coming for good.” Or at least until I got married.

  “For good?”

  “Zed.” My voice twanged with frustration. “What’s going on?”

  His voice quieted. “I moved into your room.”

  “Why?”

  “Dad’s staying in mine.”

  My knees practically buckled. Reaching out for the counter, I steadied myself before I spoke. “Dad?”

  “Mom moved him in a couple of weeks ago. The chemo has been so hard on him that he needs to be taken care of.”

  “I don’t have a room anymore…”

  “There’s the alcove.”

  Lexie slept on a bed in the alcove for the two months she stayed with us. Why she’d been willing to do that, I still couldn’t understand.

  “Although sometimes Izzy stays over. Then Mom sleeps in the alcove and Izzy uses her room.”

  “Why is Izzy staying over? I thought she was helping Ada.”

  “She’s been helping with Dad some too,” he said. “When Mom has an appointment and I have school.”

  “Freddy needs to leave.”

  “Ella…”

  “What?”

  “Mom’s not going to do that. He’s, uh, he’s in hospice care.”

  Hospice. That meant he was dying. Pushing that thought from my mind, I responded, my voice growing shrill. “But I want to come home!”

  “Did you understand what I said? He’s dying,” Zed whispered.

  I swallowed hard, refusing to care. “So how come you’re not at school right now?”

  “I’m going in late. I’ll leave once Izzy gets here.”

  I wound my index finger through the cord of the phone. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?”

  “I thought Mom had. Come home and stay with Mammi,” Zed suggested. “I’ll come out and see you.”

  “I have to go.”

  “I’ll tell Mom you called.”

  “Don’t bother,” I answered, tears stinging my eyes.

  “Ella—”

  “Bye.” I hung up without telling him I loved him, without even waiting for his farewell.

  Maybe I could go home to visit, make sure things were okay with Ezra, and then come back and work for Pierre for a couple of months. Then I could return to Lancaster County for good.

  Neither Millie, Luke, nor Eddie was around all morning, or for dinner, either. Rosalee and I didn’t talk much. It was hot and humid and I looked forward to riding in Penny’s air-conditioned car to South Bend. Even though Pierre’s kitchen was hot, the place had air and was still cooler than Plain Treats or the Home Place.

  After we were done eating, I waited for Penny in the shade of the tulip tree. She was late. Finally I sat down, crossing my legs under my dress, my book bag in my lap.

  I heard a rustling behind me. It was Luke.

  “Are you sneaking up on me?”

  He held something wrapped in an old brown paper bag in his hand.

  “Kind of,” he said. “I know you’re leaving soon—”

  “Not until next week.” I didn’t add “Maybe.”

  “Oh.” He stopped a foot from me. “Well, do you have a minute now?”

  I glanced toward the driveway. “Until Penny gets here.”

  He nodded. “Okay. I should have gifen this to you three months ago, when you were asking if I’d seen any artwork around here.”

  I gasped in anticipation.

  He knelt down beside me. “I found this in our house years ago, where Eddie found the game. I was just older than Eddie is now. I shared that room with Tom. We hadn’t lived here long and I was exploring.” He opened the bag as he talked. “I’ve hidden it from Daed all these years. It wasn’t until he burned Eddie’s half of the game that I realized you were looking for this. Then it took a while for me to be willing to part with it.” He pulled a foot-by-foot canvas mounted on a square frame from the bag and then turned it over and handed it to me.

  It was a painting of a baby, but not the baby in the game. The eyes were different and this one’s face wasn’t as full as the other one. And while I couldn’t tell if the baby in the game was a boy or a girl, for some reason, this one looked like a boy. Was this a painting of Mammi’s brother Gerry, Rosalee’s father? I hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should chance showing it to Rosalee. I didn’t think she would be offended by it, but it was hard to know for sure. The baby had dark curly hair and was smiling.

  “He’s beautiful,” I whispered.

  “I’ve always thought so too,” Luke said. “Not as beautiful as a real baby is—but pretty close.”

  The background of the painting was green and texturized, like the woods, and a small bird was in the bottom right-hand corner.

  “You think your great-grandmother painted it, ya?”

  “Probably,” I answered. “Though I don’t know why it was over at the dairy. Which room was it in? I want to tell my mom about it.”

  He explained that the bedroom was at the top of the stairs, looking out on the backyard. It was a small room with a slanted roof, just big enough for a child or two.

  A wave of appreciation for Luke swept over me. He had treasured the painting all these years. And he had kept it safe. Now, he hadn’t given it to me impulsively, but had thought through his decision, long and hard, first.

  “Thank you,” I said, as the sound of tires rolled over the gravel. A quick glance and I knew Penny was arriving. “Thank you so much.”

  “I should have taken the game too,” he said. “I didn’t think it would be in danger.” He sighed. “You know, not very many people in our district would have destroyed the game—or a painting like this either. Lots of the kids I know dr
aw.” He had a look of regret on his face.

  “I’m just glad you saved the painting. This is absolutely amazing.” I stared into the eyes of the baby. I didn’t recognize them. I was certain they weren’t replicated in Sarah’s book. I stood, looking from Penny’s SUV to Luke.

  “Would you tell her I’ll be right back? I need to run this to my room.”

  Luke started toward the driveway while I ran to the house, putting the painting in the drawer with the book, and I then hurried back out.

  “Thanks again,” I said to him as he handed me my bag.

  Penny tapped her horn.

  Impulsively, I reached out to hug him. He allowed me to and even gently hugged me back.

  When we reached the bakery, Pierre welcomed us warmly. My plan was to bake my cakes, roll the fondant, and make the marzipan birds today. I would assemble everything tomorrow. On Monday Pierre would grade the cakes.

  I started with mixing up my batter, and then as the cake was baking, I whipped up the filling from the fresh raspberries I’d brought from Rosalee’s berry patch.

  When that was done, I began molding the birds.

  Pierre peered over my shoulder.

  “Shoo,” I said.

  “Sassy, are we?”

  “Yes, as a matter-of-fact, we are.” I glared at him.

  “Settle down, Ella. If we are going to work together, we had better find some peaceful ground.” He was eyeing my raspberry filling as he spoke. “And besides,” he said. “I have another proposition for you.”

  “Shouldn’t you wait until you can fulfill the first one before adding another?”

  “Non. They actually go together.” He turned away from me. “Do you think your cousin—the one who owns the bakery—would let me carry some of her delicious things? Those sticky buns, perhaps.”

  “How do you know about the sticky buns?”

  “Oh, I snuck in there one day. But you weren’t working.” A grin crept across his face.

  “It’s a little far for distribution.”

  “I know. I distribute out to Nappanee. It would not be a problem for the company I use to swing by.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. That would open up all sorts of distribution possibilities.